Two reports say a series of denial-of-service attacks were launched from Iran.

Iranians have mounted a series of denial-of-service attacks over the past year that target major US banks and other companies, according to two published reports that cite unnamed US officials.

The reports, published on Friday by The Washington Post and Reuters, came a few days after websites for both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase experienced unexplained service disruptions. US Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said on Friday that he believes a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is behind the disruptions, but provided no evidence to support the claim. Neither bank has confirmed that the disruptions were the result of attacks, so it's possible equipment failure or other internal causes are responsible.

According to the Washington Post, US officials suspect that Iran was behind similar denial-of-service attacks, which bring websites to a crawl or make them completely unavailable by overwhelming them with garbage traffic. One such attack was carried out in August, and was aimed at disrupting the websites of oil companies in the Middle East "by routing their efforts through major US telecommunications companies, including AT&T and Level 3," the publication reported, citing US intelligence and industry officials. It was the largest attempted DoS attack against AT&T "by an order of magnitude," an industry official said. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the press.

According to Reuters, Citigroup has also been targeted in the campaigns, which it said are likely in retaliation for their enforcement of Western economic sanctions against Iran. Reuters also said while the attacks originated in Iran "it is not clear if they were launched by the state, groups working on behalf of the government, or 'patriotic' citizens." The attacks may be intended to distract victims from other, more destructive breaches, the news organization added.

Security experts have long said that it's difficult or impossible to determine the origin or source of many DoS and other computer-based attacks. In the absence of technical evidence that supports claims attacks are coming from Iran, it's not possible to verify them.

"US Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said on Friday that he believes a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is behind the disruptions, but provided no evidence to support the claim"

Hmm, so it's a big "maybe" that could be used to gin up the case for war. There is a strong "bomb Iran" contingent amongst the right wing hardliners here in USA, and candidate Romney counts on some of them for foreign policy advice.

If the senator wants to lie at least he has to make something more credible. At least the WMD in the Iraq war where better up made lies.

Does someone honestly think if Iran was behind this they would actually do it from Iran using Iran network? How stupid is that? Most attacks are botnets and remotely controlled, not to mention if they where doing it they would make it look likes its coming right from inside the US, using US servers and networks.

Someone already said there in the comments "or the computers in Iran are just zombies being controlled from possibly anywhere else in the world".

My guess? Someone trying to blame Iran and its not a wonder the senator knows this as well. It seems some people really want to push the US into another war.

And whats funny is this idiots are not even clever enough to make their lies at least some how credible.

And yes, and im sure the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps doesn't ´t have anything better to do than play with computers and attacks banks which represent the western capitalism. What a joke!

This senator must have in IQ of 35. There also should be laws against making public comments like this. Anyone can say anything and then say "ahh yes, it comes from a reliable, hidden, ultra secret source" which is nothing but his way of saying "I just made it up and of course have absolutely no evidence of anything, im just a creative dude and will say anything to push my agenda to the public".

"US Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said on Friday that he believes a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is behind the disruptions, but provided no evidence to support the claim"

It seems that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. The US has been using cyber attacks on Iran and other countries for years. Why would we be surprised we get a dose of our medicine back at us?

If the senator wants to lie at least he has to make something more credible. At least the WMD in the Iraq war where better up made lies.

Does someone honestly think if Iran was behind this they would actually do it from Iran using Iran network? How stupid is that? Most attacks are botnets and remotely controlled, not to mention if they where doing it they would make it look likes its coming right from inside the US, using US servers and networks.

Someone already said there in the comments "or the computers in Iran are just zombies being controlled from possibly anywhere else in the world".

My guess? Someone trying to blame Iran and its not a wonder the senator knows this as well. It seems some people really want to push the US into another war.

And whats funny is this idiots are not even clever enough to make their lies at least some how credible.

And yes, and im sure the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps doesn't ´t have anything better to do than play with computers and attacks banks which represent the western capitalism. What a joke!

This senator must have in IQ of 35. There also should be laws against making public comments like this. Anyone can say anything and then say "ahh yes, it comes from a reliable, hidden, ultra secret source" which is nothing but his way of saying "I just made it up and of course have absolutely no evidence of anything, im just a creative dude and will say anything to push my agenda to the public".

I agree...it sounds like someone was just trying to get web clicks... <cough><cough> Goodin <cough>...this is bad reporting, if you aren't going to name your source on a highly speculative ( at best issue), is it really news to begin with?

"US Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said on Friday that he believes a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is behind the disruptions, but provided no evidence to support the claim"

Lieberman is beating the war drum again. Shocking...

How much you want to bet Iran is the next target, and it will be the next Republican administration that takes you into yet another war?

we cannot say that they started this cyber war, the US and israel were first to start this dirty game. Wait when China gets its fingers in this game.... the US is really playing a dangerous game!

Wait for China? LMAO. Who hacked Google a while back, along with human rights activists and Chinese dissidents? They are already in the game.

The scary part would be if China were to actually start a "real" war with the west. They have a standing army of like 1million. A buddy and I were talking one night and we figured out an approx percentage of the US population, that was in the military in total. We then took that percentage and applied it to China. What we found, is that if the Chinese were to arm the same % of its population as the US does, there would be enough soldiers to line the Canada/US border from end to end, 1 soldier per metre, 15 soldiers deep. We also figured that with an army that big, you could kill 10,000 soldiers a day, and it would take close to 20 years to kill the whole army, and in that amount of time, they could replenish their entire army all over again. We were talking about it as if we were going to write a book where we would come up with a plan for Canada to take over the world using a mercenary army from China, lol. They give us soldiers, we give them the CANDU and a bunch of Uranium, lol.

we cannot say that they started this cyber war, the US and israel were first to start this dirty game. Wait when China gets its fingers in this game.... the US is really playing a dangerous game!

Wait for China? LMAO. Who hacked Google a while back, along with human rights activists and Chinese dissidents? They are already in the game.

The scary part would be if China were to actually start a "real" war with the west. They have a standing army of like 1million. A buddy and I were talking one night and we figured out an approx percentage of the US population, that was in the military in total. We then took that percentage and applied it to China. What we found, is that if the Chinese were to arm the same % of its population as the US does, there would be enough soldiers to line the Canada/US border from end to end, 1 soldier per metre, 15 soldiers deep. We also figured that with an army that big, you could kill 10,000 soldiers a day, and it would take close to 20 years to kill the whole army, and in that amount of time, they could replenish their entire army all over again. We were talking about it as if we were going to write a book where we would come up with a plan for Canada to take over the world using a mercenary army from China, lol. They give us soldiers, we give them the CANDU and a bunch of Uranium, lol.

As long as we have nuclear weapons, China is never going to war with us. Actually, they won't go to war with us otherwise because they have a LOT of investment in America today.

we cannot say that they started this cyber war, the US and israel were first to start this dirty game. Wait when China gets its fingers in this game.... the US is really playing a dangerous game!

Wait for China? LMAO. Who hacked Google a while back, along with human rights activists and Chinese dissidents? They are already in the game.

The scary part would be if China were to actually start a "real" war with the west. They have a standing army of like 1million. A buddy and I were talking one night and we figured out an approx percentage of the US population, that was in the military in total. We then took that percentage and applied it to China. What we found, is that if the Chinese were to arm the same % of its population as the US does, there would be enough soldiers to line the Canada/US border from end to end, 1 soldier per metre, 15 soldiers deep. We also figured that with an army that big, you could kill 10,000 soldiers a day, and it would take close to 20 years to kill the whole army, and in that amount of time, they could replenish their entire army all over again. We were talking about it as if we were going to write a book where we would come up with a plan for Canada to take over the world using a mercenary army from China, lol. They give us soldiers, we give them the CANDU and a bunch of Uranium, lol.

Iranians have mounted a series of denial-of-service attacks over the past year that target major US banks and other companies, according to two published reports that cite unnamed US officials.

I'm getting sick of "unnamed US officials" talking about stories we never hear about again. Full disclosure is exactly what separates fact from propaganda.

There are also subtler journalistic tricks, such as starting the sentence with a strong, albeit unfounded claim, "Iranians have mounted a series of denial-of-service attacks," but then weakening it with "reports that cite unnamed US officials."

If the article started with "Despite offering no evidence to support the claim, unnamed US officials suspect that a series of large denial-of-service attacks originated in Iran", it a) would be more accurate and responsible reporting and b) would result in less sensationalistic and misguidedly antagonistic response among the readers of the general public. (The "offering no evidence to support the claim" phrase was also buried in the article).

Wouldn't it be weird if there was a country that had experience with cyber-warfare that also wanted an excuse for someone to attack Iran? Hypothetically, they wouldn't even need to be that far away from Iran.

Wouldn't it be weird if there was a country that had experience with cyber-warfare that also wanted an excuse for someone to attack Iran? Hypothetically, they wouldn't even need to be that far away from Iran.

So what these "unconfirmed reports" indicate is that Iran has the expertise to execute a dDOS attack, but not to secure its network from Flame and other intrusions attempting to sabotage, derail, or otherwise gather intel on their Nuclear program. And rather than putting their experts to work securing their networks, they are instead attacking the web-sites of US banks and Big Oil?

... aaand this is confirmed by anonymous US Intelligence agents and Oil industry experts (wrt the August attack)?

Someone remind me again... which publication was it that was found to have essentially acted as a government mouthpiece when it published the WMD story? I swear it was TWP.

If the article started with "Despite offering no evidence to support the claim, unnamed US officials suspect that a series of large denial-of-service attacks originated in Iran", it a) would be more accurate and responsible reporting and b) would result in less sensationalistic and misguidedly antagonistic response among the readers of the general public. (The "offering no evidence to support the claim" phrase was also buried in the article).

In the Georgia/Russian 2 day conflict, Russia crippled the Georgian infrastructure with routing through Estonia. If the country has enough resources to work towards developing enriched uranium, I would hope they have a few computer nerds that know to route attacks through a third party country. They also technically could have deniability, considering how many malware infections the country has seen in the past 5 years.

The question is, who is set to gain from producing attacks originating in Iran.The senator is jewish and receives a large amount of money from APAC. Saudis also gain from a diminished Iran.

The real issue is American Politicians putting Israeli interests ahead of American interests. To quote Egyptian President Morsi: “When the Egyptians decide something, probably it is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this, of course, is not appropriate for Egypt.” However out politicians seem to consider Israel and US as the same country, I don't remember voting on that.